Cat in the Hat 

As with CC, this is the other Must Do route for the hoardes. It's a lot more forgiving of crowds than CC but you're still looking at a potential fiasco if things are crowded. I prefer a late start (like 3 or 4pm) to let the crowds thin out and avoid the oven.

This is a good route but not so great that it's worth spending a whole day waiting in lines on. There are really only two classic pitches (4 & 6).

Hey George! Your route description sucks :-). No, really, the only problem I have is that the right thing to do is combine 5 & 6, not 4 & 5. It's no stretch to reach the top from the block with the slings. Be careful with the first few pieces (long runners) and you're all set. And as the man says, combine 1 + 2.

The other big piece of advice: the EDK is your friend. I watched some poor suckers take hours on the first rap because their knot wouldn't slide. There's no reason to use a figure-8 to join ropes anywhere in Vegas but here it's even more important. The Euro Death Knot is your friend.

John

Yeah, I messed up the pitch references in the description of P6. I submitted a correction, it should be changed in the route description eventually.

My partner and i attempted to climb this route the last week in june approximately 3 years ago it was by far the stupidest thing i've ever attempted. we were out of water by time we reached the base at about 8am (it was all ready 90 degrees) climbed the first two picthes and raped down. by the end of the hike back i had severe heat stroke. afterwards i drank about 2 gallons of water within the next couple of hours and still didnt pee until the next morning. however to make a happy ending there wasn't another soul on the route (i wander why???). don't even think about climbing this route when its hot out.

After dealing with the miserable raps on this route a few years ago, I went out and bought 180'of 7.5mm to carry along for the second rope. This makes it easier to pull down the rope from each rap. This makes my partners a little nervous; however, the test strength is quite adequate. You do need to practice with it a bit since the 7.5 mm tends to slip somewhat as you're rappeling.

As an alternate finish to the top pitch of the 'normal' climb (P6) you can step a few feet over to a brown arete and finish on a bolted line. This seems to be 10/10+ and is quite nice.Admittedy this is out of charicter with the rest of the line, but it allows you to finish on something hard if you want and dodge the crowd on the last pitch and the rap-through issues.

This is an easy and extremely popular 5.6! We were the third party out of about 6 that day (thursday). Unfortunately, the 1st group was un-godly slow and jammed everyone up. It took us something like 8 hours to do a 2 hour climb. If you have a 60m rope definately run pitches 1 and 2 together! Don't even bother stopping at the first anchor bolts. Top of P2: You'll know you're there when you reach a ledge (with bolts) big enough to park a pickup truck on. Also, run together pitches 4 and 5. Intead of stopping at the top of P4 then doing another pitch of downward traversing to the right just run them together, its only 20 feet or something and easily accomplished with a 60M rope. Thus, P4 will go something like this: head up the right crack on the red wall. Traverse right and cruise up the dihedral; don't stop at the rock with all the slings on it. Continue up the dihedral for another 20 feet or so and traverse right around the arete and setup belay on the nice big ledge, there will be a big block with slings on it. From here you can tackle the final pitch going straight up the crack. Pitches 4 and 6 are the best ones. Also note; it is extremely easy to get your knot stuck on the first repel, use the euro death knot; even that got stuck for us! Luckily someone freed it for us from above.

Great climb! We spent more time lounging on belay ledges, waiting for parties ahead of us to move on, than we did actually climbing--and this was on a Thursday. It did afford us the opportunity to meet some tres cool people from across the U.S. (D.C., Santa Cruz, North Carolina, Colorado Springs). Anway, if the other climbs in the area are as good as this, I can't wait to return.

As Jason mentions, beware on rappel. It's tricky to keep your rope from getting stuck. The sixth pitch was the best by far--so persevere and battle your way through the crowds and you will be rewarded. So, what does "mescalito" mean, anyway? I know it's a James Taylor album title.

Instead of stepping down and around at the start of pitch five climb up to the first bolt of the 10d variation and then traverse back right to the crack. Just take care with rope drag.For us a much more pleasant alternative than the downwards right traverse. H.

Rappeled this again the other day after climbing The Walker Spur. This route can now be rapped fairly easily with a single 60M rope. Here is the beta...from the top of 6 rap to the anchor on the 5.10+ sport'o variation. The go to the "pancake" belay. Now rap to the east shoulder of the formation...you will have to down climb about 10ft of 5.3/4 to get to the tree rappel. Now rappel to the big terrace...unrope and scramble over to the 3 bolt boulder rappel...do this to another rappel(which was added when?) from 2 bolts. From these 2 bolts you can make it to the ground.

With a single 70M you can probably remove the short bit of down climbing.

A quick added note on rappelling with a sixty meter rope:

It is possible to do the rappels from the slung block under the bolted 5.10 variation in two rappels to the tree rappel. There are some slung blocks climber's right of the route behind an arete. By rapping to these, one may avoid downclimbing the lower moves with a single rope.

Jason

Our group of three climbers thought this route was incredible. Pretty casual yes, but how often can you get that steep of climbing at 5.6 on pitches 3 & 5? Those two pitches are simply a blast to climb (understatement)!! We were able to do the raps no problem but probably just got lucky, it seemed like ropes could get stuck fairly easily. One topo note; in the new guidebook (Brock) the topo drawing looks like you should start angling left immediately after the bolt; don't do this! After the bolt continue to slap directly straight up to another left angling crack, follow this to the bolted anchors. Four Star Climb!!

My friend Sandy and I did this route yesterday (2/19/07) and had a great time other than the sprinkles turning into a downpour on the rap down. We did this route with one 70 meter rope without a problem. We climbed the route in 4 pitches (combining pitches 1&2 and 5&6). We rapped with the single 70m rope in 5 rappels. The first rappel from the top of pitch 6 (top of the route) to the top of pitch 4 (slung boulder) left us standing on the boulder just to the climber's right of the slung boulder. The second rappel from there to the top of pitch 3 (tree anchor) left us standing on the ledge at the base of pitch 4 with a very short easy downclimb to the tree anchor. The third rappel got us all the way to the top of pitch 2 (bolted anchor at the big ledge) without having to even downclimb the short scramble. The rope from there didn't reach all the way to the ground, so we rapped to the bolted anchor at the top of pitch 1, then to the ground. One rope makes it much easier to not get it stuck on the way down, single 70m rope highly recommended.

Gorgeous climb, Great protection, Great exposure...I would recommend climbing CITH with two ropes as it eliminates any down climbing. If you start this route after 11:00 on a week-end be prepared to walk out and maybe rappel in darkness. This route was swarming with odd numbered parties helping turn a 2 hour climb into a 7 hour climb. Seems all parties rapped off at the top of pitch 4...They missed out. Pitch 6 is a must do, I found moving right after the bolt and then back left caused less stress. Someone added a new quicklink to the end of the route...Thanks!

Good route but nothing really stellar on it. P1+2 were sweet as one long pitch, P4 was good, and I assume P6 would have been awesome if not combined with P5. A party recommenced clipping the 1st bolt of the arete variation and doing the traverse, which leaded to such heinous rope drag my partner had to leave the lead rope clipped to the last bolt and switch to the line we were trailing to rap. Lesson learned: never trust people who are so sketchy they get in verbal fights about how to set a rap.
We ended up rappelling in the dark, freeing a stuck rope and helping a party with only 1 60m rope stuck halfway up P3 on a ledge. Good times.

"A party recommenced clipping the 1st bolt of the arete variation and doing the traverse, which leaded to such heinous rope drag my partner had to leave the lead rope clipped to the last bolt and switch to the line we were trailing to rap."

This actually works if you're willing to run it out a long long way...however, as you found out...if you place gear before the top of the pod in the crack, there will be serious rope drag. If you don't place gear before that point, you risk a ground fall.

Jason

Just got back from my first visit to RR and must comment on the excellent quality of the climbing. Being Spring Break we expected some crowds, but to our great pleasure found nobody on Cat In The Hat all day. One party, which kindly let us pass on Frogland; one party came up behind us on Frigid Air and we were the second group of maybe five on Olive Oil. We did sport climbing at Calico late one day and easily got onto routes in Black Corridor. The weather was very nice, the people friendly and helpful, I'll be sure to return.

I have never liked the crowds on this climb, but we decided to give it a run on Saturday of rendezvous weekend. Expected large crowds as we had to park on the loop road at Pine Creek. Arrived at the base of P1 at 11:00 am and there was no one on the climb. Weather was perfect and it made for a relaxing quick climb. As far as the moves past the bolt, I think they are solid. I didn't see the need for any gear until the rap anchors. Probably says more about runout Adirondack slab climbing than it does the Cat. Rapped off without any problems. A good day. Just goes to show you can never tell if it will be crowded or not. Best pitches to lead 1, 4 (roof pitch), & 6 (bolt pitch). The other pitches and traverses detract from the climb.

Good fun, mellow climbing. We did an off route variation on the second pitch up a shallow left facing corner (about 70 right of the 2nd anchor bolts at the top of the first pitch). It actually was very nice climbing, some hollow rock but fun moves. Only negative is that you have to scramble through some bushes to the left to get to the pitch 2 tree that is the anchor.

When rapping from the top do a short 40 foot rap to anchor bolts at the top of the arete and then an 80 foot rap to the ledge with slung chickenhead, top of pitch 3.

I made my first visit to RR during Spring Break 2008 and expected several parties on the popular climbs, but we found very few people around and on CITH we were alone all day. The weather was perfect, can't wait to return.

We did this route on June 2nd, only our party of 3 was silly enough to be on this climb...very sunny and very hot! This felt less like a technical route and more like an alpine climb despite the heat.